The charity landscape has changed beyond recognition in the last 20 years. We have moved from a few charity brands to many, creating the need for new and innovative ways to communicate and engage with the public. Names and brand imagery are constantly being reinvigorated and reintroduced as a result. Just like the brands we test, we also need to improve and refresh our approach.

After extensive reading in current and emerging brand research, feedback from clients and with the desire to keep our research cutting edge, we have decided to close the Brand Attributes monitor and develop a new product that creates in-depth brand research which meets everyone’s needs. We are happy to announce that the outcome of this is our new monitor, the Charity Brand Evaluator.

This new brand tracking survey provides the tools to:

• Identify which qualities of your brand drives public preference;
• Establish what the public want from their ideal charity and understand how you compare to this;
• Choose state of the art metrics to see how your brand is seen by the public;
• Explore your own data and share it across your team with easy-to-use online dashboards.

Flexibility within your Brand Model

During the last 15 years we have worked in the sector, we have had many conversations with different charities about what their priorities should be when tracking their brand. The answer? There is no one-size-fits-all brand model. Every charity is unique, and the public feel differently about different charities and the causes they work on.

For some organisations brand measurement is about personality, for others values or even products. We believe that by having an array of different metrics you can choose to put into your brand model, we can help to build the best possible brand model for your charity.

For example, if you are an established and experienced charity who has been investing in making sure their brand is seen as more current and up to date, you may be interested in the metric that explores whether the public perceive you as more relevant today than ever, or as an organisation that meets a genuine need.

If you are a charity that is concerned about reputation, you can prioritise understanding your charity’s perceived transparency and accountability by choosing the metric that explores to what extent the public see you as a charity which is clear about how it spends its money.

If you are a charity that works within a crowded sector, e.g. Cancer or Animals, where brands could be misnamed or confused, you may select the metric that explores whether the public is able to differentiate you from another organisation.

By creating a choice of metrics, with each metric having up to 4 questions within it and the option to change choices from wave to wave, we are now able to support our clients with flexible but in-depth brand research, no matter what their brand priority may be.

Understanding what attributes the public associate with you

Like Brand Attributes, we will be providing the public with a choice of attributes e.g. Determined, Trustworthy, Bold, Caring, Inspiring etc. and asking them to select those which they associate with the ideal charity (as well as the ideal charity in your sector), and also choose those they associate with your charity brand.

Committed to providing you with the latest in methodological practice, we carried out a combination of rigorous statistical testing methods, including principal component analysis, to create a concise but varied list of 20 attributes. This allows respondents to express a full range of description about a charity, while not being overwhelmed with choice.

Revealing actionable insights, this research has previously allowed us to see how some charities really thrive in creating a unique brand personality. As we transition to our new Charity Brand Evaluator, we are excited to explore how this is impacted by new trends in 2019.

Syndicated research with personalised results

As ever, our tracking research is syndicated allowing you to understand not only your data but also how your comparators fare against the same measures. This provides you with the opportunity to benchmark and understand your progress in a sector-wide context.

The most exciting addition to our new monitor is a new online dashboard available to all clients. This dashboard will be shareable around your organisation, giving you the latest results in an interactive format that allows you to cut charts by relevant demographics, as well as interrogate the data in a user-friendly format. For those of you who prefer to receive the traditional PowerPoint decks, we will still be producing these and you will also be able to export the charts you create from your online dashboard directly into PowerPoint.

If you would like to hear more about our new brand research and how the Charity Brand Evaluator can help you create your unique brand model then get in touch at cbe@nfpsynergy.net or call 020 7426 8888.